Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 122 Watts (156%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 should be 525% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134400 (525%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be quite a bit (about 1114%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64600 (1114%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be quite a bit (more or less 783%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22700 (783%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.